Roux (see page 79) makes the best thickening for soups which are not clear, using brown or white roux according to the color of the soup. Thin the roux with a little soup, so it will be smooth before adding it to the soup kettle. Roux added to pea, bean, and potato soups prevents their separating.
A thickening of eggs is made as follows: Beat two or three yolks and dilute them with a half a cupful of cream or milk or cold soup. Stir in a few spoonfuls of the hot soup to warm it. Remove the soup from the fire and stir in slowly the egg mixture, return it to the fire to cook the egg, but do not let it boil, or it may curdle.
Clear soups are sometimes thickened by using one teaspoonful of arrowroot to a quart of soup. Mix the arrowroot with a little of the cold soup, turn it into the hot soup, and cook until it becomes clear. A clear soup so thickened may be flavored with sherry.
[84-*] It is not meant to imply that the stock-pot should never be removed from the range and that articles should be added at any time. When the nutriment is extracted from one collection of materials, the stock should be strained off, the pot thoroughly cleaned, and a new stock started as soon as enough materials have again accumulated.--M. R.
[87-*] It will be difficult if not impossible to make a perfectly clear and brilliant soup from stock where bones have been used, if the stock has been subjected to boiling heat. Boiling dissolves the lime in the bones, and this gives a cloudiness which clarifying will not entirely remove.--M. R.
2 yolks. 1 entire egg. 1/3 teaspoonful of salt. Dash of cayenne. 1/2 cupful of beef stock.
Beat the eggs well, but not to a froth. Add one third of a teaspoonful of salt and one half cupful of clear beef stock. Pour the mixture into a small pan or flat dish, so it will be about one half inch deep. Set the pan into another one containing hot water and place them in a very moderate oven, so that the custard will set without bubbles and without browning on top. Let the custard become perfectly cold. Without removing it from the pan, cut it into cubes one half inch square, or into fancy forms, with vegetable cutters.
These pieces should be placed carefully in the consommé after it is in the tureen, allowing three or four pieces to each portion of soup.
